Aspect Software, the recently merged result of Concerto Software and Aspect Communications, today announced the general availability of Aspect EnsemblePro 6.0, the company's full-featured inbound/outbound contact center suite. Version 6 adds a number of new and enhanced features, most notable among them a multitenancy architecture that allows it to function as an ASP. It became available December 15.
The new version of EnsemblePro gives enterprise customers more flexibility to address their contact center needs, and allows Aspect to use hosted solutions to access small businesses, a segment in which contact center technology has not had a large effect, according to the company. "The new architecture allows us to address a real market opportunity for ASP," says Serge Hyppolite, director of product management for Unify, the rebranded product line. "Internationally, companies are looking to deploy contact centers, but many don't have the resources or the expertise to administer them."
Aspect has identified EnsemblePro as the platform for the Unified product line going forward, starting with version 7.0 when it becomes available; Unified is not to be confused with the current Aspect Uniphi Suite, despite the similar name, nor the incorporation of much of Uniphi's functionality. Aspect will continue to sell and support all of its Aspect, Concerto, and Rockwell products to new and existing customers.
In addition to adding SaaS capabilities, EnsemblePro 6.0 is a unified suite that handles inbound, outbound, blended multichannel contact with voice, email, Web and fax support, and includes queuing, routing, reporting, among other key features. Voice and data capture extends customers' ability to conduct quality monitoring with call center personnel. "We wanted to augment quality monitoring, and have extended the capabilities with simultaneous voice and data recording, as well as scoring and analysis for training purposes," Hyppolite says.
The new architecture opens up the call center service-provider market, which is bigger in Europe, but has starting to pick up in North America, says Joe Outlaw, principal analyst for call center solutions at Current Analysis. "If Aspect wants to continue as a market leader, this certainly enables them to do it. The capability to record data from the agent's screen along with call audio is also an important enhancement. This will be good for training purposes, as well as for regulatory compliance issues." EnsemblePro 6.0 builds in quality monitoring for every call center seat--up to 1,200 agents, in this case, which could be a competitive advantage as most other products only offer monitoring for a subset of the whole, according to Outlaw.

"The new Aspect has been fairly quiet since the merger," Outlaw says. "This new product release contains a number of important proof points to show that the company is moving forward in a strong way."
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